Via Andrew Sullivan's blog we hear from Father Benedict Groeschel, the director of the Office for Spiritual Development for the Catholic Archdiocese of New York:
People have this picture in their minds of a person planning to — a psychopath. But that's not the case. Suppose you have a man having a nervous breakdown, and a youngster comes after him. A lot of the cases, the youngster — 14, 16, 18 — is the seducer ... It's not so hard to see — a kid looking for a father and didn't have his own — and they won't be planning to get into heavy-duty sex, but almost romantic, embracing, kissing, perhaps sleeping but not having intercourse or anything like that.Most of us don't find child rape "interesting." But then again, most of us don't run the Catholic church.
It's an understandable thing ... there are the relatively rare cases where a priest is involved in a homosexual way with a minor. I think the statistic I read recently in a secular psychology review was about 2%. Would that be true of other clergy? Would it be true of doctors, lawyers, coaches?
Here's this poor guy — [Penn State football coach Jerry] Sandusky — it went on for years. Interesting: Why didn't anyone say anything? Apparently, a number of kids knew about it and didn't break the ice. Well, you know, until recent years, people did not register in their minds that it was a crime. It was a moral failure, scandalous; but they didn't think of it in terms of legal things.
And they're still making excuses for child rapists, while telling the rest of us how to live. Newsflash: I don't take moral advice from men who rape, and aid and abet, the rape of small children.
Absolutely disgusting.
Even better: The National Catholic Register is now apologizing for publishing the accurate comments of the church leader. They're suggesting he may have lost his mind. Right, because no Catholic leader has ever tried to blame the victim or excuse the rape of children.
